21 Thoughts on Inherent Vice

“It’s just a little bit strange,” Katherine Waterston begins a recent interview with ComingSoon.net, “because I’ve mostly done theater for the last ten years or small parts in films where I haven’t been asked to promote them. Nobody has asked me a question in ten years. I’ve never had to talk about my work. No one has given a damn about what I thought.”

Waterston plays a woman name “Shasta Fay Hepworth” in the just-released-in-Los-Angeles-and-New-York Inherent Vice, the latest from Paul Thomas Anderson, the auteur talent behind films like Boogie Nights, Magnolia and There Will Be Blood. With an edge-of-unreality moniker straight out of the original novel from enigmatic literary genius Thomas Pynchon, Waterston’s Hepworth launches the narrative of the 1970 Los Angeles-set comedy noir detective tale. In the lead is Anderson’s The Master star Joaquin Phoenix, headlining as Larry “Doc” Sportello, a stoner P.I. who, over the course of the film’s two-and-a-half hours, engages in all sorts of straight-from-Pynchon dialogue with costars like Josh Brolin (starring as ultra-conservative LAPD Detective Christian “Bigfoot” Bjornson), singer/songwriter-turned-actress Joanna Newsom (appearing as the dream weaving Sortilège) and many more.

“I find I sort of like that,” Waterston continues, “to get to keep it to myself. It’s a bit bizarre — It sort of feels like people are saying, ‘Explain yourself to me, young lady!'”

Since Inherent Vice represents a curious blend of style and ideas, we’re aiming to both keep spoiler details to a minimum and to celebrate the film’s begging-to-be-viewed-on-the-big-screen 70mm photography with a series of slides that offer 21 thoughts on Inherent Vice, each pulled from a series of interviews that include, in addition to Phoenix, Brolin, Newsom and Waterston, stars Jena Malone, Hong Chau and Sasha Pieterse. Check them out in the gallery viewer below and, if it’s not already playing near you, catch the film when it expands to theaters everywhere January 9.